On President's Day of 2003, I decided to go on another crazy road trip. Three day weekends in the Southwest are a true gift, and with some interesting rain and food I decided to go East. Ever since my 2000 road trip when I drove through Petrified Forest I've always wanted to get back there again and go hiking through the Painted Desert. I'd also started learning more about photography and wanted to see how Kodachrome would work on the earth tones of the Badlands. This became the primary point of focus of my trip.

I also drove through Navajo land and got to visit Canyon de Chelly NM. Being on Indian lands, this was truly a new experience. The canyon itself was stunning and had phenomenal ruins in the canyon walls. Mindblowing, though, was the fact that people still lived and farmed in the canyon. It is a sacred place to the dine, and as such I suspect it is a privilege to continue to live and make use of the canyon as their ancestors did. I feel sorry for what we did to the Indians and their way of life, but part of me is glad that we were at least able to let the Navajo live on their sacred lands.

The Photographs

These pictures were taken with the old Miranda camera. First film is a Kodachrome 64 (KR, seem sa bit on the red side) and Plux X 125 for the B&W. The pictures were scanned from negatives with a Sprint Scan 4000. Click on the "Next" in the upper right to start browsing through them.